A Love Letter to the European Right…

With Europe taking beating after beating, and Theresa May seemingly wanting to make #GE2020 a fight over the ECHR and the scrapping of its partner, Human Rights are in need of some love. I am and will always be, one of the many giving it to them. We, as whatever nation, should be hearing EHCR protects the our fundamental individual rights, but also helps us ensure our government works as it should.

Anti-ECHR arguments come into two flavours; the “Human rights aren’t British values” kind (overlooking the part the UK played in drafting the ECHR), and those of the “GAH EUROPE!/UKIP” kind. The latter group often equates the ECHR with the omnipresent terror of the European Union (I’m looking at you “The Sun”), but, in the words of my public law professor (and now MSP) Adam Tomkins, “There are two legal Europes! TWO!” The European Union – for the most part – doesn’t care about human rights, so here it is as unimportant as the Scottish Christian Party, but I do want to address the idea that Human Rights are European, not British, values. Winston Churchill helped form the Council of Europe, the ECHR’s body, in the aftermath of WW2. The Document protected people from torture and defended their right to free speech and thought. How can these not be British values?

The former argument is worth addressing more fully. The EHCR has, over its nearly 50 year history, raised some uncomfortable questions for successive British governments and has seen the UK go to the Strasbourg court (The European COURT of Human Rights) many times. What is rarely reported, however, is that the UK has lost just 0.5% of Strasbourg Cases!

But 99.5% successes are, perhaps, not as contentious as that losing 0.5%. One of the longest running spats is the issue of prisoners’ voting rights. The Court agreed that depriving all prisoners of the vote runs contrary to the ECHR and therefore the UK must lift its ban. This has irked many on all sides, so successive governments have attempted to kick the issue into the long grass. But, contrary to some reports (I haven’t looked away “The Sun”), saying “not all prisoners should lose the vote” is not the same as saying “all prisoners should have the vote”. The court has repeatedly said that it is only the universal ban is illegal. For many, this tension is a reason to scrap the ECHR, but for me it shows it’s working, by forcing parliament, government, ministers, and most of all the public to ask difficult questions and, sometimes, give difficult answers.

Even though the success of certain human rights arguments has sometimes been bitter, the ECHR has helped the UK modernise and become a 21st century nation. It was human rights that led to the scrapping of the ban on gay and lesbian people in the army. Despite warnings at the time that it would disrupt troop morale and was a prime example of a European attack on British sovereignty – does such a decision seem controversial now? It has also forced the question on women’s rights and equal marriage – concepts now not so un-British or Anti-Scottish as they perhaps once were. The UK generally, and Scotland in particular, now has some of the highest LGBT+-friendliness rating in Europe. Human Rights helped get us there.

But, irrespective of all these achievements – the spectre of terrorists having rights will always fan the anti-ECHR flames. The idea that a suspected terrorist, like the former bane of Theresa May’s life, Abu Qatada, can use these ‘European’ human rights arguments to stave off deportation to Jordan is ghastly to many. But how radical a suggestion is it that a man should not be convicted using evidence that stands a high chance of being obtained under torture? Would we accept that in the British justice system? It was, after all, a UK body that accepted the human Rights argument, not some “Mickey Mouse court” (Tony Bone MP). When it was suggested that planes used in US extradition flights landed on UK soil, there were immediate massive outcries. So why is this decision so controversial?

One final example. The “BA Crucifix” case – where British Airways employee Nadia Eweida went to the European Court of Human Rights to confirm her right to wear a cross on a chain . British Employment tribunals had, on two occasions, held that there was no breach of UK law (and by extension her convention rights), but when she went to Strasbourg she got the confirmation she was looking for. Surely this was met with outrage by the right as European judges over-ruling British judges? Quite the opposite. One Tory MP even tweeted that he was “[d]elighted that principle of wearing religious symbols at work has been upheld – people shouldn’t suffer discrimination due to religious beliefs.” The MP was David Cameron.

This was first written back in 2012 for an old site called scotspolitics.com – which has since closed. It has been minimally amended to fit 2016’s new political circumstances.